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"I'll remain in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his standing are poised to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing nobody would take his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally eager for things to improve. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it before the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been simmering desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will delight some on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to